NCAA minnow Mapua beats all other schools in this one PBA category: Quality over quantity?

The Mapua Cardinals have endured another losing season in the NCAA, but they still own the distinction as the school with the most number of PBA MVP trophies. Jerome Ascano

QUALITY over quantity.

That was the response Spin.ph received on Twitter from one reader from University of the East in reaction to the story we ran about the collegiate schools with the most number of alumni on the PBA's active roster.

In the tally we conducted, Ateneo emerged as the school which has the largest number of former players currently in the roster of pro league teams, followed by Far Eastern University and De La Salle.

But in terms of quality, one good measurement, the Spin.ph reader volunteered, is the number of times a school’s player or players had won the MVP award in Asia’s first ever play-for-pay league.

The reader from UE is in for a surprise, however. While the Red Warriors share the honor of having the most number of MVPs, UE and all other schools for that matter trail this one school in terms of number of MVP trophies.

That distinction belongs to Mapua, which has slipped off the radar in the college leagues with one miserable season after another since winning its last NCAA championship in 1992-93.

The Cardinals have a total of six MVP trophies including the record four won by former King Cardinal Alvin Patrimonio (1991, 1993, 1994, 1997) and one each from former Crispa stars Atoy Co (1979) and Freddie Hubalde (1977).

Co, incidentally, is the current coach of Mapua in the NCAA.

Tied for second on the list are University of San Carlos of Cebu and UE - two teams which, ironically, carry the moniker Warriors.

Cebu's USC Warriors only had one player who won an MVP plum in Ramon Fernandez, but ‘El Presidente’ won the league's highest individual award four times in a long, legendary career.

In contrast, the UE Red Warriors had three different players to win the MVP in Robert Jaworski (1978), Allan Caidic (1990), and James Yap (2005-2006, 2009-2010).